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4.2.12 WC: 191694 The case of the questionable antiques My brother Nathan and I were retained to appeal the conviction of a Persian antiquities seller, who was charged with arranging the theft of his own antiquities. The story, which became a lead article in The New Yorker magazine, involved a man whose father had been the director of antiquities for the Shaw of Iran. When the Shaw fell, the son took the family’s antiquities and opened a shop in London. The Metropolitan Museum in New York wanted to exhibit the antiquities, since the owner said they were pre-Mohammaden and therefore very valuable. The owner had an expert examine and certify them as pre-Mohammaden and they were then shipped to the museum. When they arrived in New York, they were stolen. The District Attorney charged our client with arranging for their theft, because, as the DA alleged, they were not really pre- Mohammaden and therefore considerably less valuable. The motive was to collect insurance based on the artificially-high British evaluation. When the client asked us to do his appeal, he offered to pay us in pre-Mohammaden antiquities. I responded, “Would you really want a lawyer who was foolish enough to accept pre-Mohammaden antiquities from a man charged with falsely dating them?” We agreed on a retainer and we won the case. Not only was the client totally reprieved but he even got his antiquities back. Shortly thereafter, he sent me a bonus for winning. Sure enough, it was an antiquity. I hope it’s real. 385 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017472